DNA Leads To Arrest In 1977 Rape, Murder Of Young Mother In South LA
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA/CBS News) —DNA and fingerprint evidence collected at the scene of a brutal 1977 rape and murder of a woman in front of her two young sons at their South Los Angeles home has led to an arrest in the case, the L.A. County District Attorney's Office announced Monday.
Sixty-year-old Kenneth Ray Matthews was arrested April 24 by Los Angeles police on one count of murder and special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a rape and robbery.
Authorities said that on Dec. 6, 1977, Matthews broke into the home of 25-year-old Leona Davis in the 8700 block of Menlo Avenue.
According to the DA's office, Davis had just put her children, ages 4 and 7, to bed, when Matthews entered the home and raped and fatally stabbed her in the neck while her two boys looked on.
A fingerprint match initially led police to Matthews, and a follow-up DNA test provided evidence he was at the crime scene, prosecutors said.
If convicted of murder, Matthews is eligible to face the death penalty. Prosecutors will make the determination of whether to pursue the death penalty at a later time, the DA's office said. Authorities were unable to file separate forcible rape or attempted first-degree robbery charges in the case because of statutes of limitations, according to a press release.
Matthews will be arraigned May 30.
It's the second time in as many weeks that California investigators have tracked down suspects in cold cases by using DNA. More than three decades after the trail went cold, a suspect was arrested in suburban Sacramento in the "Golden State Killer" case.
Investigators compared the DNA collected from a crime scene of the Golden State Killer to online genetic profiles from a genealogy website and found a partial match, a relative of the man police have identified as 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo.
DeAngelo, a former police officer, is suspected of killing at least 12 people up-and-down California and raping nearly 50 during the 1970s and 1980s.
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